


In the Evening There is Feeling

by spacegeography



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegeography/pseuds/spacegeography
Summary: Hawkeye dreams of his mother
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	In the Evening There is Feeling

Hawkeye dreams of his mother. 

She is in the kitchen, in the dress they buried her in. Dark blue velvet with a white lace collar. It is soaked through. She takes a step closer. Her face is gone. A piece of flesh falls from her like a fat raindrop and hits the linoleum with a soft plop.

Hawkeye looks at it. It melts slowly, like a jello left in the sun. He cannot move his eyes from it. He cannot turn his head. Her hand reaches out to cup his cheek, and cold wet bones touch his skin. Frightened and disgusted, he pushes the hand away, tries to scramble back. She is disappointed. He begins to cry. 

He wants his mother. He wants to run to her and hide his face in her stomach while her arms wrap around him and pet his hair. But she is right in front of him. Soaking wet and cold as ice. He doesn’t want  _ her. _ She feels his rejection and turns away, never angry, just heartbroken. He cries harder, says “Mama, mama,” but she doesn’t come back to him. She walks through the door and is gone. The puddles of water and tissue are gone. “Mama, I’m sorry,” he screams through his tears, but she doesn’t return. He is frozen in his chair, sobbing and chanting after her, and he knows there is nothing he can do. 

Hawkeye wakes up with a sound that is halfway between a scream and sob. He expects to see his kitchen in Crabapple Cove, but there are only the dark shadows of Korea. His chest heaves; his tongue feels swollen and his throat thick. A light flicks on to his right. In front of him he can see Charles craning his neck up to watch him.

BJ is at his side, warm, living hands on his back rubbing circles. “It’s alright, Hawk. I’m right here.”

Hawkeye collapses into the embrace, lets himself be pet and shushed as he cries. “I’m sorry,” he gasps. To BJ, for having to comfort him. To Charles, for waking him. To his mother, for all of it.  _ I want my mother _ , he thinks. It is the deep aching longing of something impossible to have. 

BJ smooths his hair, and with a glance towards Charles to make sure he has slipped his sleeping mask back in place, presses a kiss to the top of Hawkeye’s head and lays his cheek on the spot. “You’re alright. It was a nightmare. It’s over now.”

It isn’t. 

Hawkeye nods. “I’m alright now,” he says. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. BJ cups his cheek with his hand. Hawkeye’s skin crawls, but he doesn’t pull away. BJ wipes his tear tracks with his thumb and kisses him gently. 

“Can you go back to sleep?”

Hawkeye nods. BJ kisses him again, sweetly as a parting and retreats back to his cot. The light flicks out.

Hawkeye closes his eyes, and images and memories come unbidden. The day of her funeral. It was cold with harsh winds; Maine getting ready for a rough winter. When they lowered her coffin, ground water had already seeped up into the grave. Hawkeye took a handful of cold dirt and dropped it onto her, just as his father had done. The sound was awful, and Hawkeye began to cry. His father picked him up and held him, though he was too big for it, as the rest of the mourners walked by and added more horrible sound to the air. 

She was cold and wet. 

Hawkeye could think of nothing else. They had placed her directly in a puddle. Winter came quickly and froze the ground around her. He felt guilty for it constantly, but couldn’t tell his dad, who he knew would just say that she could not feel anything anymore. But the thought wouldn’t leave him. 

When he was home alone, in the time between school and his father getting home or sometimes when dad was pulled away on a house call, Hawkeye would slip into their room. He took every blanket he had and wrapped himself up on her side of the bed and breathed her scent from the pillow. Dad would find him sometimes, if he fell asleep. Sweating terribly under three or four knit afghans. It was uncomfortable, but it was penance. 

If he were lucky, Dad wouldn’t carry him to his own room. He couldn’t sleep in there. He would stay awake all night until his clock read 5:00 and he could pretend that he woke up and go into his father’s room. He would pretend to be cheerful and awake, ready for the day. And Dad would say, “It’s still early, Ben. We’re not farmers.” And Hawkeye would be allowed to get into bed with him and lay his head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. And finally he could sleep.

In his cot, in Korea, Hawkeye rolls onto his side so he can see BJ’s silhouette. 

In school, a few months after the funeral, the teacher called him Benjy. 

“ _ Don’t _ call me that!” Hawkeye snapped. If he hadn’t been sitting he would have stamped his foot. Only his mother could say it. Only his mother as she buttoned up his jacket or kissed him goodnight or placed pancakes on his plate or any of the times she said I love you. He could not be Benjy for anyone else. 

The teacher made him come up to the front of the class and gave him five whacks and sent him to the corner. He pressed his forehead against the wall and pressed his fists into his eyes and trembled with the effort not to cry. The boys already called him a sissy often enough. 

The recess bell rang and the children ran out. The teacher told him he could go too, but Hawkeye shook his head and the tears began falling. “I want mama,” he said, over and over, garbled by his crying. And the teacher patted his head and let him sit inside and have an extra milk and his tears were dried by time his classmates came back in, cheeks flushed and hats damp with melting snow, and Hawkeye felt just as miserable, just dehydrated. 

Hawkeye stumbles slightly in the darkness over haphazardly discarded clothes and the crate their chess board sits on. He reaches BJ’s cot and whispers his name. 

BJ scoots back without a word and lifts the blanket for Hawkeye to get in. It’s cramped, and their backs will hurt tomorrow. If they’re lucky, one of them will wake before Charles. If not, Charles never seemed the type to care what anyone other than himself was up to. 

BJ wraps his arm around Hawkeye’s chest and takes his hand in his. Hawkeye can feel BJ’s breaths against the back of his neck. He focuses on how it feels to have a warm body pressing against his own, and closes his eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote from Gertrude Stein
> 
> Thanks to aunt-hawkeye for reading this over


End file.
